Perfect fence for my Sawstop - finally!

[jim gossage]

I have never liked my composite material stock Sawstop fence. I seemed to have trouble ripping wood with parallel sides and this was especially problematic when making picture frames. I finally measured the fence face plate and the metal fence that the face mounts onto. The fence itself was wavy and concave in by up to 0.007". The face plate varied in thickness by 0.007". That may or may not seem like a lot, but I was not getting straight rips and so I decided to try and make it better.

I owe much of what I did to Mike Leung who posted on this in 2013. Following Mike's lead, I bought a 42" Woodhaven extrusion channel. This channel was precisely milled - 0.747-0.749 in thickness and flat within 0.003". I next fashioned a snug fitting carriage to ride in the left miter slot so that I could precisely measure the variation in my fence which I noted on blue tape on the top (pic 1). Since the fence was mostly concave in, I taped brass shims on the fence so that they hung down on the fence (pic 2). In order to mount the channel to the fence, you need 1/4-20 x 3/8" button screws and t-nuts and have to elongate the stock holes in the fence by about 1/4", which I did with dremel. You have to take off the right face plate to attach the new left face plate/channel but that's not too hard. Voila, a new and improved fence (pics 3 and 4).

The new fence is within 0.003" flat using the same dial caliper as above. Ripped a few pieces of oak and their width was within 0.001" along the length. Meets my needs! Picture frame miters are now perfect. The slots on the channel make it easy to attach auxillary fences. I was quickly able to make a 12" tall fence for ripping larger pieces on edge, slid it right onto the new fence and tightened down a couple of 1/4-20 x1" flat head bolts.

It took me 10 years to get er done, but Thanks Mike!

pic 1.jpgpic 2.jpgpic 4.jpgpic 3.jpg

[Bernie Kopfer]

Nicely done, and good description. Glad it solved your problem.

[Michael Burnside]

Looks great. I’ve had mine setup this way for a year now. I absolutely love it. I also built a few difference fences, like a zero clearance baltic birch and a phenolic fence for delicate miters and odd stock. I even have a short fence/stop for miter gauge cuts. Overall the flatness and flexibility of the extrusion is worth the couple of hours installing and less than $100 in materials.

[Patrick McCarthy]

Jim, thank you for posting this. Much appreciated. Patrick

[glenn bradley]

A great thing about Saw Stop's better-than-Beis close is how easy it is to swap the faces. I have a similarly milled extrusion for mine as well. The t-slots (and I'm a fan of t-slots) sometimes end up in just the wrong spot but that is rare. I attached shim material to my laminate faces so I can swap back and forth as desired and get a good flat face pretty reliably.

[Michael Burnside]

A great thing about Saw Stop's better-than-Beis close is how easy it is to swap the faces. I have a similarly milled extrusion for mine as well. The t-slots (and I'm a fan of t-slots) sometimes end up in just the wrong spot but that is rare. I attached shim material to my laminate faces so I can swap back and forth as desired and get a good flat face pretty reliably.

Agreed Glenn, I did the same thing. I ended up using a piece of phenolic I had lying around and it's been great for when I need a smooth fence and takes less than 2 minutes to put on or take off.

[Robert Hayward]

I went through a very similar experience with my PM2000. Tried three different home made fence faces and could not get as flat as I thought it should be. Finally ended up with a milled flat extrusion with slots from Very Super Cool Tools. Made a very minor modification to the PM fence to mount the new extrusion and I am finally happy. As Glenn said, sometimes the slots interfere but easily solved with an add on face using the slots.

[Jay Houghton]

Ah! Great idea. How do you get an allen wrench into that slot on the bottom of the fence? I see how the face of the fence is attached to the frame, but there's not enough room to rotate the allen wrench the requires 1/6 revolution! I think I'll do this to my personal Sawstop and then use the removed face to replace a damaged on at our club, so win/win.
Thanks.

[Michael Burnside]

Take off the opposite side fence and it’s easy to get good angles for the extrusion side. Then reattach the old fence by sliding it back on and tightening. The sawstop melamine slots into place so it isn't too difficult to tighten that side. I did not have to modify anything on my fence to facilitate the extrusion fence. You’ll need a ball nose Allen for sure.

[jim gossage]

Ah! Great idea. How do you get an allen wrench into that slot on the bottom of the fence? I see how the face of the fence is attached to the frame, but there's not enough room to rotate the allen wrench the requires 1/6 revolution! I think I'll do this to my personal Sawstop and then use the removed face to replace a damaged on at our club, so win/win.
Thanks.

That was a little bit of a problem for the Sawstop. For the Woodhaven extrusion I had to elongate the mounting slots on the fence body, which means that the mounting bolts sit about 1/4" deeper inside the fence relative to the slots in the bottom. As I recall, that changed the angle enough that I couldn't use the ball-allen to tighten the channel in, so I had to remove the opposite side face plate and tighten the channel face plate through those mounting holes. Another possible option would be to use a flexible extension on the end of a driver handle. I can visualize it working but not sure how easy it would be in reality.

[Jay Houghton]

Even with a ball end allen wrench I cannot get a grip on the cap head screw. I think the flexible driver may be the only way. If the slots were just a little bigger you could make a 1/6 turn and then grab it again!

[Michael Burnside]

I'll take a look at my allen wrench Jay. I believe I used a "screwdriver" type ball-end that has a smooth shaft (might have been the one I got with the saw). I think it is probably a 6-8" shaft. I do think I had to "push" the ball into place but it would fit and I could turn them without too much trouble. I'm 100% sure the typical L-shaped guys are a no-go.

[Jay Houghton]

Well, I have an extra set of metric allen wrenches so I sacrificed one. That's all the bend that it took to get the ball end to grip. I kind of figured I might end up here but thought "how could you engineer something that requires a special tool"! But then the auto service industry is built on specialized tools. Of course once you get the first side off you can use the straight wrench on the other side.
Thanks for looking however.
JayWrench.jpg

[Dave Fitzgerald]

Jim, thanks for posting along with the how-to details. I'd been thinking of this upgrade, and your post prompted me to do it.

I opted for the 42" extrusion from VerySuperCool Tools, in part because I was hoping not to fuss with elongating the holes in the fence. Didn't need to, but I did have to get a little bit clever with the hardware. I used 1/4-20 t-nuts and 1/2" button cap bolts. The channel on the extrusion lined up with the part of the "keyhole" where it broadens to accept the bolt head, so the head wouldn't seat flat on the inside of the fence. I added washers inside the fence, using a magnet pickup tool to maneuver the washers in from one side and coming in with the bolt on an allen wrench from the opposite side. That done, it was easy to tighten everything down, and I needed only minor adjustments to square the fence.

[jim gossage]

Hi Dave,
I thought about using washers too and don't recall exactly why I opted not to. But elongating the holes didn't take much time in the end with a dremel. Maybe 15 minutes to elongate all of them.